Essential Grid provides out of the box data binding support to the popular data sources mentioned in the following list:
ADO.NET Entity Models Web services LINQ to SQL IEnumerable and IQueryable collections IList and IBindingList collections
Essential Grid processes the given data sources using the built-in LINQ expressions to perform paging, sorting, grouping, filtering, and editing operations. You can bypass the built-in data source processing and can provide your own data for the grid to display by configuring it in the custom binding mode.
Easy, declarative binding to Web services greatly simplifies data binding in a grid.
Grid Bound to ADO.NET Entities
If your data object has a custom object as one of its fields, Essential Grid provides support for displaying that object's public properties along with the main columns. All the grid operations like sorting, paging, grouping, filtering, and editing actions can be performed on these complex object columns too.
Grid Showing Complex Object Columns
Essential Grid provides various options for filtering records. Filters can be applied to multiple columns using the provided filter operators.
Essential Grid also provides excellent UI options for run-time filtering like the Excel UI dialog, and the filter bar combo box with options to define custom filters.
Grid with Filter Drop-down Menu
Grid with Custom Filters
Search filters can be used to filter data by searching the entire grid or a specific column.
Grid with Search based filter
Essential Grid supports built-in paging and includes a pager bar that can be used to navigate to a specific page. Grid also provides a JSON mode for paging.
The JSON mode of paging provides an efficient way to retrieve paged data as JSON objects. The advantage of this approach is that only the data source is refreshed and the client-side grid refreshes itself to display the updated data.
Grid with Pager Bar in which Data is Retrived as JSON Objects
Page navigation can be done through a slider, by manually specifying a page number, by using navigation buttons, or by selecting a specified page number. There are 12 different types of pager styles that can be applied.
Essential Grid features easy ways to add, delete, and edit records. It supports inline row editing, inline form editing inline template form editing and editing through unbound columns.
Excel-like Bulk Editing
Adding Records to a Grid—Inline Mode
Grid with Editable Rows—Inline Mode
Editing Rows in a Dialog
Editing Rows in an External Form
Editing using unbound columns.
Styles to change appearance and formatting can be applied to individual columns, rows, or cells. Essential Grid also supports conditional formatting that applies pre-defined styles
to the cells if they satisfy any defined criteria.
Grid with Column Formatting Applied
Column templates give you the ability to fully customize the way data is presented in a grid column. You can include images, hyperlinks, or any kind of UI element in the template.
Grid with Custom Column Template
Stacked headers give you the option to have additional header rows that span across grid columns. Users can group columns under such headers.
Grid with Stacked Headers
Auto-wrap in columns allows text in a grid to be wrapped automatically based on the width of the column.
Grid with Auto-Wrapped Columns
You can merge adjacent cells in a grid and still perform sorting and grouping on columns containing merged cells.
Grid with Merged Cells
Essential Grid offers different kinds of selection modes such as row only, column only, cell only, or any combination of rows, columns, and cells.
Record-Based Selection-CTRL key
Essential Grid provides very rich and extensive clide-side APIs and events to do client-side operations.
It provides various methods and events for sorting, grouping, selecting rows, dragging and dropping rows, clicking rows, showing and hiding rows, showing and hiding rows, etc.
